I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to marking guide tools generally and, more particularly, to a one-piece multi-use marking guide tool suitable for use alone, or in conjunction with a retractable metal measuring tape, in measuring and marking a work piece; or employed with a cutting tool or other device.
II. Related Art
It has long been a common practice for wood workers such as carpenters or the like to scribe lines along and parallel to the edges of boards or sheets of building material such as plywood using a marker and a retractable tape or the like. The tape is grasped between fingers of one hand extended to the desired measurement location and a marking pencil or other marking tool is held against the end of the tape using the other hand and thereafter a line is scribed along the work piece by moving and following the tape along the edge of the work piece. While the technique has long been used and is generally successful, it requires the user's fingers to slide along in contact with the edge of the work piece and injuries including slivers and abrasions to the fingers of the sliding hand holding the tape are common, making this technique less than desirable in that respect. In addition, accuracy may suffer if the relationship between the tape and the work piece shifts at all during scribing.
Guides have been devised for marking work pieces in conjunction with retractable metal measuring tapes that attach directly to the housings for the retractable tapes. Examples of such devices are illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,890,393; 4,702,012; and 6,173,505 B1. While such appliances have been used with some success, all of these arrangements are multiple-component systems which need to be attached and detached from a tape housing. There clearly remains a need for a simple one-piece pocket tool that need not be attached to an associated tape housing when used with a retractable metal tape for measuring and scribing a line along a work piece or the like. It would also be desirable if such an article could also be used without the tape and have still other additional uses.